One Year Anniversary Blog Self-Review

When Donncha asked me to lend my WordPress assault skills to the then named WordPressMU, the backbone upon which WordPress.com is built, I have to be honest. I didn’t have the time, energy, or enthusiasm to tackle another WordPress project. Like that ever stopped me.😉

I only took a few minutes to decide on the topics for my new WordPress.com blog. I needed something to blog about why I worked on breaking it. I summed up my new blog’s purpose in my very first WordPress.com post published August 16, 2005:

Lorelle on WordPress will be a look at how to use WordPress and make it work FOR you, not against you. There is a lot you can do with a WordPress site and it can be simple or challenging, depending upon how much time, effort, and customization you want to put into it.

We will be talking about the new WordPressMU, the multi-user version of WordPress that is ideal for hosts to allow them easy and fast WordPress sites for multiple users. We’ll be addressing the various ways you can customize WordPress and your WordPressMU site. We’ll cover WordPress plugins and accessories that will help you add functions and capabilities for users and you, as the site administrator.

With those few words, my purpose on Lorelle on WordPress has not wavered. Though, admittedly, I never thought I’d find over 800 articles to write about WordPress and blogging. That’s right. Over 800 articles in 365 days. WOW!

The WordPress.com Invite Frenzy

The first invitations to WordPress.com went out to the lead volunteers and developers of WordPress. We came in with all of our expertise for breaking the full version of WordPress and immediately started breaking things.

Meanwhile, Matt Mullenweg, founder of all things WordPress, started a media and blogosphere frenzy over invites to the “exclusive” and “secretive” WordPress.com, following the recent successful marketing ploy by Google for their email service. A WordPress friend of mine put his WordPress.com invite on Ebay and the crowd went wild.

After the first post or two, many WordPress.com blog users, who worked so hard to get an invite to WordPress.com for their own free blog, have no idea what to do with it. Some do, and plow into it with enthusiasm, but I’m seeing a lot of posts from new users who 1) don’t know what to do with their WordPress.com blog or 2) think they have to write about WordPress and WordPress.com.

Let’s kill the second myth right off the top. Even though it says “wordpress” in the domain name, your WordPress.com blog can be about anything you want. You are under no obligation to write about WordPress. A few of the first users have already destroyed the myth and showed off screen shots of the new Administration Panels and talked about the new features, so the blush is off the rose of WordPress.com. If you are an expert, helping through long time volunteering and development, then talking about WordPress on your WordPress.com is just one more extension of your already active involvement. If you aren’t, and just a fan, then have a few posts about WordPress, but then what? What do you blog about?

Now, I want to talk to the folks who worked hard to get the invite to have their own free WordPress.com blog only to arrive and not know what to do with it after they’ve just shouted to the world “Weeee! I got a WordPress.com blog!”

Blogging with WordPress.com is very different from using the full version of WordPress. The most important distinction is that as the owner of a blog on WordPress.com, you are a part of the WordPress.com community. And I mean “comm-unity”. Communication and unity. We’re in this together.

On the Dashboard administration panel, we see a list of who is saying what around WordPress.com. We also see a list of the most popular blogs and blog posts, showing us what people are interested in within the WordPress.com community. There is now a WordPress.com Forum for sharing and discussing WordPress.com issues and getting help.

As part of the WordPress.com community, you play an important role in developing WordPress.com. From the feedback button in the Administration Panels, you provide WordPress.com developers with your input and feedback. In September 2005, I tried to put this into words we could all understand:

WordPress Comm-Unity: If you have the problem then I have the problem.

If you have problem with your WordPress.com blog, 300,000 other people also have a problem with their WordPress.com blog. By helping yourself by reporting on problems or giving feedback, you help all of us. We are all dependent upon each other for the success of WordPress.com.

Are The First WordPress.com Bloggers Still Blogging?

I highlighted many of the first bloggers on WordPress.com, both on and off the WordPress development team. Of special interest to me were the ones who blogged on WordPress.com unaware of the bubbling currents of change under the surface. They just blogged because it was fun, not technical. And their blogs represented the excitement and potential of what WordPress.com was really all about: blogging.

So, let’s check in with some of the first WordPress.com bloggers I wrote about in those first few months and see if they are still blogging on their one year anniversary.

Becky Works: Becky Works is still Becky but it’s now called “I thought I’d have it together by now…The Musings of Middle Age”, and she is still going strong, challenging herself, her religion, and motherhood as she bounces through her life.

Rishma, Derek’s derkilicious, Unweak, and Alice Hates Wonderland, personal blogs about life in general, are now defunct.

A Month Long Tribute to a Year With WordPress.com

One year. Over 800 articles across 365 days. And what a year. As a tribute to what is possible to do with a WordPress.com blog, or any blog, for the next 30 days I will be highlighting collection of topics I’ve written about over the past year. I’ll look back at how I blog with WordPress and WordPress.com, how others blog, the changes and improvements in WordPress, and about WordPress and blogging in general. A retrospective. My first.

5 Comments

It is so easy for people who start blogging to wander and then keep wandering around. I am glad I came across this blog when I started. Though it is WordPress specific, lot of it applies to the generic domains of blogging and design. Your blog works like a board that shows directions to the right paths. Congratulations and thanks!

I remember the days when Jintle’s posts were always top of the pile! Glad to see he’s still posting. I wondered why I didn’t see any of his photos, but looks like I’ll have to subscribe to the Space Fotos feed.

It’s been great to check in with you over these many months, as well, Lorelle. Your articles about the in’s and out’s of the WordPress workings have been invaluable to — I’m sure — thousands, if not millions of users. Congratulations to you, as well as to the entire WordPress family. I really am honored to be able to say I was a part of it from the beginning.